In Your Head
by Wakadooia
Summary: (Part 5 of Space Vagabonds) The time has come for Gavin and Cyclonus to part ways, it's a little awkward to just go wandering off into an alien space-market-type place when you have no idea what to do and where to start. But at least Gavin's not the only one as Cyclonus too stumbles onto something very confusing and finds lingering consequences.
1. Chapter 1

If any human could understand how cramped and pained it must be for a caterpillar during metamorphosis, it was Gavin.

Having curled up on the chair and fallen asleep, his bones felt like rock and as if some kind of nonexistent forcefield was keeping him squished up into a tiny ball of human.

He didn't even check for any other person in the room before letting out a painful groan as he pushed his limbs outwards.

He hoped there wasn't anyone else about as he flopped to the side and promptly fell off the chair.

The floor was hard and cold and damn was Gavin feeling sensitive as what wouldn't have usually been a big pain felt like his whole body had inverted.

His breath felt strained as he scrambled to his feet, grabbing the closest thing he realised it was the control panel set out before the two chairs.

His legs refused to stop shaking as Gavin allowed himself to stare at the controls, a dull throb trying to smother his mind with thoughts about his pain but didn't manage to eclipse the brief worrisome thought about whether or not he had pressed something he shouldn't have while pulling himself up.

Glancing around quickly, Gavin found the room to be empty.

Being unwatched brought about a heavy sigh of relief and he found himself slowly straightening out as his body finally got used to being upright and mobile again.

Growling from below reminded Gavin how he went to sleep hungry, and how there was food in his room.

The door to the command room was thankfully open to him, as it slid away quickly when he touched the panel next to it.

Giving a look upwards Gavin examined the triangular symbol on the doorframe.

It was present in Swindle's ship as well.

Must be the symbol of the apparent 'Decepticons'.

Looking around the place bleary-eyed Gavin took another few moments to take it all in.

This 'floor' of the ship seemed to be composed of few rooms; the piloting area, the small corridor he was in that had a stairway on one side and then the other mini-hallway which had two doors on either side.

Doors Gavin could only assume lead to other bedrooms.

Gavin cast a glance to the worn, well-used door, he wondered if he was the only one awake here, Cyclonus did look extremely tired but at the same time, he seemed capable of bouncing back from injuries very quickly and Gavin doubted the pummelling he received would put him out for long.

Quietly trying to take in as much information as he could while he had the chance the only other thing in the tiny corridor was a hatch on the floor.

He wondered if he could hide in it.

He then promptly got rid of such thoughts and shuffled into the room that was, for now, his.

It was as messy as he'd left it, with blankets and food-like items scattered about.

Curiosity lead him to the alien fruits.

He could have oranges any time while he was on Earth.

Dragging a hand through the bag Gavin pulled out the first thing that touched his palm.

It looked like a small bundle of leafy celery, but with the texture of sea shells and the colour of rhubarb.

Smelled okay though.

Plucking off the leaves Gavin went to try those first.

Bubblegum.

The damn stuff tasted like bubblegum, that obnoxiously 'fake' taste bright blue ice lollies and ice cream had.

Reeling from the outright bizarre flavour Gavin tried the stalk, hoping for something a little different, or more 'sensible'.

It didn't come as the crunchy stalk tasted just the same as the leaves only slightly milder.

It didn't exactly make him want to vomit or empty the contents of his gut through any other means so it was good in Gavin's book as he took a few other stalks of the stuff and finished them off.

He made sure to leave a few, of the vegetables? Fruits? Things, Gavin might have to use it as a visual aid.

Half an orange chased off the last twinge of hunger and quelled his thirst enough to ignore it.

He should probably ask about something to drink, oranges are probably not a good long-term replacement for an actual drink.

This is also a good time for Gavin to really look at himself, not physically as there was no mirror in here, but just to think about things.

He was sat on the floor of a bedroom in an alien craft, somewhere out in a part of space humans probably won't reach for another few millennia.

Certainly at the rate humanity was progressing last time he risked the headache that was world news and politics.

He spared a thought to wonder if it was any better or any worse now, maybe he could imagine something better now he was likely to die before he ever set foot in the same galaxy again.

More perturbed by the thought of politics and world news on Earth than he was by the morbid thoughts of dying before he ever reached there again, Gavin ended that mental train of thought.

He ran a hand through his tangled hair, or at least through as much as he could manage and felt it a day.

Well, morning.

Not giving the alien bed a glance Gavin slipped out of the room, wondering if he was still alone or not, maybe some conversation would be nice.

Curious, he knocked on the worn out door.

"You awake?" He asked to it, voting that grumpy company was better than no company.

Nothing.

He knocked again and this time got a quiet voice

"Give me a nano-klik"

Oh. He had no idea what that was but it was likely a minute or second.

At those words, Gavin hopped back a few steps, unsure at the state of the pilot.

If he could see through walls or was Cyclonus right now, he'd know he'd need a bit more than a minute to get up and out.

On the other side of the door, Cyclonus had responded with those words automatically despite still being in bed.

He stared droopily at the ceiling going in and out of focus as he thought about nothing.

He did wonder how long he would've spent in bed doing that if the human had not disturbed him.

Even so, he was still tired and stiff but at least managed to sit upright and swing his legs out of the bed.

Without a need for clothes or much in the way or morning preparation, Cyclonus was quickly at the door to his room.

Gavin, on the other hand, was getting quietly intimidated by the silence and time, shuffling further back from the door.

When the door finally thumped open Gavin would be lying if he didn't jump a little himself, the knee-jerk reaction was only tempered when he noticed Cyclonus's sudden awkward movements too.

As if not expecting him to be standing right at the door Cyclonus stumbled slightly to move out of the doorway and hit the panel to close the door trying to bar any insight into his bedroom.

It was like a meeting of the awkward meerkats as both stood upright and uncertain at the dual moments of stupidity. It was only not quite so charmingly silly as one was huge and spiky.

Nothing was helped as neither spoke but stared a little awkwardly.

"Ugh, so, I don't know if you need that shit but, you got any water or something here? I mean, kinda need some fluids to go with solids? … Y'know?" Gavin broke it finally acknowledging that the Oranges were an awful answer to thirst and a lingering dryness was creeping around his mouth.

Cyclonus grunted and stalked off down the hallway but turned down the stairs rather than heading to the control area.

Following the alien like a shy puppy, Gavin followed him to a room that had clearly been repurposed.

Well, he thought so because it seemed like something large and heavy used to be in here but was removed. One-half of the room had cupboards and a counter, on one side there was a crate with a thick wire coming from one side and disappearing into the wall. The other side had another square appliance with a door in and some dials.

It was familiar enough for Gavin to recognise it.

There was a sink, some implements on the counter and another few square things below it.

Even a small table with one chair on the opposite side of the counter.

It was a kitchen.

Pulling out something that looked like a glass made from wood Cyclonus filled it with water from the sink and dropped it on the counter and did nothing else.

Frowning a little Gavin had to stretch slightly to reach it but said nothing as he shuffled to the side with his drink, somewhat curious to see if he could observe proceedings on an alien craft, if but for a moment.

Regarding him, with little more than another grunt, Cyclonus reached into a compartment, that could be compared to a fridge, under the counter and pulled out a small weasel. Or at least something that closely resembled a weasel.

Gavin eyed the dead alien animal with some interest to see exactly how something like this counted as a 'breakfast'.

He found himself quickly wanting to slip out the room when Cyclonus swung it up and promptly chewed it's head off.

Feeling mildly queasy at the wet crunching noises Gavin didn't need to keep watching to know Cyclonus simply continued eating until the tiny body was gone.

With the 'weasel' gone Cyclonus quietly wandered out the room, leaving Gavin to quickly chug down the last mouthfuls of water.

Putting the cup on the counter he quickly scuttled out after the alien as he quickly strode back into the pilot's seat.

"Oh gee, so you're a straight-up carnivore?" Gavin frowned slightly as he sat himself down, given his sharp appearance it wasn't really a surprise but once again useless words fell out of him to quell the silence.

"Eh?" Cyclonus looked confused at the word "I eat meat… mostly"

"Yeh" Gavin nodded "So not a total Carni- eh, I guess you just answered that you just favour meat… and bones"

Cyclonus made a grunt in response before speaking again

"Yes"

Ignoring how it felt like a double-answer Gavin rubbed the back of his head.

"Where are we going?" he asked

"To where I'm leaving you" Cyclonus responded.

"Ah, yes you've made your intent to get rid of me clear" Gavin felt bad, not because he was being dumped somewhere but because the feeling felt 'normal' "But where?"

"Ugh" Cyclonus leant backwards and rubbed his eyes, staring at the panel before him as he tried to think through the human words he did know "We won't get there until… morning? Not today…"

"Even with the space bridge thingy?" Gavin frowned, the transportation they had been taking seemed somewhat instantaneous.

"Yes, will take time to get to a space bridge to get there"

"Oh" Gavin found himself frowning, a full-day here on this ship, with nothing really to do and an alien who might not entertain an entire day of questioning.

But he really couldn't think of anything else to do.

"Uh, alright then, say, uh, when Swindle talked about his combat-buddies-whatever he named someone called 'Onslaught', met him? Sounds a little like they had a disagreement" Gavin tried prying for a conversation while thinking over Swindle's little rant.

"Disss agreement…" Cyclonus hissed slowly rolling the word out carefully to ensure it's correct pronunciation "More like he will kill Swindle… He stole off all the Combaticons and sold their things, they were not happy"

"Hm, sounds like something he'd do" Gavin agreed, hardly a day around him and he could just see it happening like he was there.

With that, the room plunged back into silence and Gavin had to rake his brain for something to do or say.


	2. Chapter 2

With no noise interrupting the calm flight of the ship Gavin felt a small spike in confidence, or just a small urge to rebel against some kind of imagined rule or idea.

With that urge to do something Gavin hopped off the chair and scampered to the door, tossing a look back to see if anything was happening.

It wasn't.

Cyclonus was still staring out the viewing windows and hadn't even looked back to check where he'd gone.

Deciding this wasn't acceptable Gavin went further, in the hallway before the bedrooms he tried pulling at the staircase door, but it only rattled in response no matter what he did to it, or what wall-mounted panel he touched.

The noises of the door enticed no reaction so Gavin found himself diving into his 'room'.

Not that any of this accomplished anything but it felt good like he was proving something.

Or at least doing something that wasn't sitting there staring out the windows.

Then again the view of passing stars and planets was phenomenal he had to admit.

Shuffling in place Gavin passed a look to the small window in his room and sighed.

Not taking the cover off of the alien bed he climbed atop the thing to stare out of the window.

The bed felt like it looked, and it felt like being sat on a somewhat smooth stone.

Sagging against the window Gavin glared out of it.

This was it, an entire day of staring out the window because he probably couldn't get a conversation out of an alien.

Then again he didn't try much after the little he said.

Gavin sighed yet again and rubbed his face, it was ridiculous, he had no idea what to do and it was showing.

Stars rolled lazily by as the ship cruised along its pre-plotted course.

Splashes of colour and clusters of rock dotted the expanse before him, a few planets hung quietly in the distance.

The planets seemed to fade away and more clusters of rock clustered about the place.

If he had to be stuck here for a day he was at least going to make a bit of a game out of it.

As floating space rocks passed by they made shapes with the rocks behind them.

Blob.

Blob.

Blob with five lumps along it.

Blob.

Blob.

Well, this was fascinating.

Blob.

Ring.

Blob.

Squinting a bit more Gavin re-focused his attention on the ring, it was defined and not made of rock, the inner side of the ring was a pale silver.

Removing himself from the un-open bed Gavin jogged lightly into the pilot's deck.

Cyclonus was still staring out the window, arms folded, looking like he was out of focus with the world.

"Oi, smeghead!" Gavin barked to get his attention.

One arm raised itself from its position and Cyclonus seemed to get back into reality.

"Eh, what?" He looked a mix of mildly irritated and confused.

"You missed the Space Bridge" Gavin snapped again, he raised a hand before lowering it, he was about to say it was off the starboard side of the ship but then realised that; A, he had no idea which side starboard was out of the two terms and B, if Cyclonus would actually understand him.

He was probably right not to have continued that train of thought as Cyclonus just frowned at him.

"Ring-thing, that way" Gavin simplified it and pointed out the window in the rough direction of where he spotted it.

He rolled his eyes, but Cyclonus got up.

Hands on the edge of the control panel he leant over and began scanning the area.

Behind him Gavin crossed his arms, he knew he saw it and if this fucker was going to say he didn't…

The quill's on Cyclonus's back suddenly swung out and perked up, they twitched about and stood upright.

Clearly, he had spotted something interesting.

Without a word he swung himself back round into his chair and grabbed the steering controls swinging the craft around.

Gavin leapt into his seat, not really wanting to be standing about as the giant space-worthy chunk of alien technology swerved around.

Now fully turned around the ring was in full view.

"This… is not… registered" Cyclonus hissed confused, squinting at the ring as if doing so would make it spew out its secrets.

The ship quickly advanced on the ring and it was indeed another Space Bridge albeit much much smaller than the one they used before.

"I have no knowledge of this!" Cyclonus sounded almost offended at this new surprise bridge being there without him knowing, he glanced at one of the inbuilt panels before him "It doesn't exist! There is no registration" He glowered.

"You say that like it's not making things easier? I mean you can warp wherever we're going" Gavin was somewhat confused.

"Ugh" Cyclonus groaned before punching something into the controls before him and taking ahold of the steering and pushing forwards "Of course, now I can throw you off"

The bridge responded to whatever Cyclonus had done and just like before it thrummed to life and the ship was enveloped in light as Gavin hissed.

"Prick"

The craft was promptly spat out in some other area of space, just beside a large green ship made up of a couple of spheres as it sailed past.

"There, I'm leaving you there, you know it" Cyclonus nodded in the direction the green ship had gone.

Gavin finally found himself speechless.

Not even a snappy vaguely witty remark permeated what he pretended was a brain.

It was immense and somewhat scary like this.

Pulling up his jumper Gavin glanced down to the shirt he wore under it.

His favourite 80's themed band.

Unicron's head.

Only the decapitated demons head on his shirt, the apparent 'Unicron', was real and suspended in space before them.

Unlike the rather cartoony depiction on Gavin's shirt that almost made it look a little like a robot, this actual place was far more detailed.

Ships of many kinds buzzed around it like a swarm of flies, going in and out.

The head itself, Gavin had no words as his mind struggled to comprehend it.

It was clearly immense, the creature, this 'Unicron' had been dead for god-knows-how-long but with no life in it, the skin of its face was a pale grey, lacking most of its flesh it's maw hung open slightly revealing some fangs still embedded within it.

It gazed coldly at the universe around it with deep empty cavernous eye sockets.

Around its head it had dull goldish orange parts, almost resembling those Egyptian-Pharaoh hat things that Gavin couldn't remember the name of. It even seemed to have ridges going along the sides of them looking like stripes. The top of its head had horns, they were long since broken but from the base they were clearly huge atop this ancient beasts head, they were the same 'dead' gold-like colour as the rest of its head, a shade that must've been far more vibrant and impressive when it was alive.

"What the FUCK IS THAT!?" Gavin squealed, still clutching at his band shirt.

"Unicron's head" Cyclonus seemed nonchalant "After I couldn't get rid of you at the last place it seemed almost fitting to just drop you off here"

"WHAT THE FUCK IS IT!?" Gavin had lost the volume controls for his voice.

"Space station, no one knows what the thing actually was but it's dead and head converted" Cyclonus was unmoved by Gavin's shuddering voice.

"BUT… But… BAND!" Gavin yanked at his shirt, pointing at the picture on it, staring wide-eyed at Cyclonus, desperate for answers.

"Eh, yes, they started here, go about planets and play, guess they decided to sneak onto your world too"

"COULDN'T YOU HAVE SAID THIS BEFORE!?" Gavin still found himself relatively unable to comprehend anything.

"Why should I tell you anything!?" Cyclonus defended himself "You were never meant to come with me, there was no point to mention it before or now! It just seemed fitting"

"Oh, fuckin'-christ-holy-fuck-me-shit" a quiet stream of curses tumbled from Gavin's lips as a few taps on the controls and the ship began sailing towards the massive head.

Still twisting his clothes in his hands, the head elicited some kind of deep existential dread from Gavin as it closed in quickly, the sleek shape of Cyclonus's ships slipping between others as they made their journeys in and out before passing between the ancient jaws of the thing.

It's mouth alone was big enough to chow down on a planet.

Even more reason to be incredibly thankful it was dead.

A portion of the things now calcified gums had been converted into a landing area for ships, with no teeth left in that portion of the gums it made for a gigantic strip of relatively flat elevated land, needing little building to make it completely flat and stable for landing.

With the ease of someone who had clearly been here before and was apparently utterly unphased by being inside the head of a fuck-off-huge dead creature, Cyclonus spun out of his chair and was quickly out down the halls and fiddling with something.

Gavin still found himself quite incapable of bringing himself to get up and out the chair.

He wasn't sure quite how long he needed to settle down and comprehend everything but he definitely needed a minute more than what he got.

A backpack made of some leather-like substance with a pair of straps that went both over the shoulders and around the chest was dropped on his lap.

It was heavy and from the shape-imprints of what was inside, clearly filled with oranges and the edge of the bag which contained the remaining alien fruits poked out the top.

"Come on" Cyclonus tried geeing him up "Time to start, you're uh, new life or whatever, I don't really care"

Clutching the bad and finding some comfort in holding a weighty physical object Gavin managed to peel himself from the chair and shuffle along.

He quietly followed Cyclonus down the stairs and down a hallway and then down the ramp out of the ship.

The air was phenomenally cool and sent shivers down Gavin's spine. Somehow there was a light breeze in here and that tiny fact felt quietly disturbing in its own way.

Inside the place, it was a bustling hub of activity.

A majority of it seemed to be market stalls but said stalls were merged with patchy blobs of shanty-town like buildings of rooms piled on top of each other like they were fluid that had just spilt out of a cup.

The buildings seemed to vary in quality and build, with some looking like they were just a table with a sign to metal buildings with electronic signs flashing along the outside.

The amount of smells was obscene, Gavin could barely pick a single dominant scent from the bunch that continued to assault his senses and the dim lights set the entire place alight with a mellow slightly pink tinted light.

The door behind him slammed shut and sprang Gavin from his thoughts with a startled jump.

Locked out, Gavin quietly looked over his surroundings again, paying little attention to the ships that covered the platform alongside them.

He eventually noticed Cyclonus had moved on, used to this place the Seibertroian had just started walking off to do whatever it is he wanted to do.

"Wait!" Gavin stumbled a little, a myriad of thoughts bustling in his head and abject panic at, well, everything "Wait!"

Cyclonus paid him no heed as he eventually caught up.

"What do I do!? I can't talk alien! What is money here? What is ANYTHING!? Do I use data injectors? Oh god, AM I GONNA GET EATEN!?"

The last few words actually made Cyclonus stop and look at him.

"You're already inside something's mouth" he responded dryly.

Gavin pursed his lips and glared, that wasn't what he meant.

"Besides, I don't care, Go off and do human things, I'm sure someone will take pity on you, you're all new and strange here, go play cute or something" and with that Cyclonus picked up speed again, leaving Gavin behind on the ship platform to contemplate his next move.


	3. Chapter 3

Go play cute.

Well, there was a piece of advice Gavin had never been given in his entire life.

Play cute.

With little else in his head, no directions or plans, Gavin flipped the bag onto his bag and clipped it around his front.

And promptly stared off into the distance of this strange place.

* * *

Cyclonus felt glad.

He didn't need any company aboard his ship, he'd managed a couple of years by himself, he didn't need some blundering alien laying claim to parts of his ship.

Even if it was mildly amusing to allow it to think as such, and get territorial enough to fight over it.

He debated about throwing a glance behind him, he did need to make sure it wasn't following him again.

Then again that was a bad idea, that would probably give it the impression you wanted it to follow, and it would oblige.

Feeling irritation bristle through him, Cyclonus put on his best scowl, he was back to doing what he wanted, and that was staying by himself.

He'd been at this space station many times before, he knew wearing a foul enough expression would do his work for him and get people out of his way.

He knew of a place to go and appropriately tuned out everything around him until the path in front of him was all he saw.

Swindle called it a 'bad habit' and Cyclonus regretted mentioning it, he had just been trying to make conversation that time.

It never hurt to be on mildly decent terms with someone who can get their hands on many, many items of various, often dubious, quality and origin.

Maybe he should allow himself to be aware of the sounds around him too, rather than tuning them out too, bad habit? Yeah right.

The building of Cyclonus's focus was politely tucked away in a corner, the places beside it were stretched out enough that you could easily miss the place.

The door you could see was fake, the actual door was down a few steps leading into the building's basement.

At this door Cyclonus uncurled his smaller arms and pressed the claws of one into a control panel, ignoring a button that read 'client' in the native tongue of the building's owner.

It beeped and allowed him in.

On the inside several faces gave him a quick side-glance before returning to their own objects of focus.

The basement was dimly lit and scented smokes clung to the air, one wall was lined with bottles of various fluids with a tiny stool-less bar at one end and a door at the other.

The room was filled with chairs and tables, many lined the walls tucked away in small booths.

In the corners, however, there were screens and many people were hunched around said screens.

Knowing better than to stare at anyone within, Cyclonus quietly moved himself over to the tiny bar, after many fights and unruly customers this establishment had reduced the size of the bar so only one person could be served at a time.

Somehow this had worked and everyone quietly queued for their drinks rather than getting wild.

The bartender was the same height as the bar, but its wide, bulging glassy eyes regarded Cyclonus with indifference.

A few quiet gestures and the bartender wobbled along the wall and returned with a drink.

To a human the drink looked like milky water in a see through bag, the top of the bag was like half a coconut with a straw stuck through it.

Cyclonus pressed a few coins onto the bar, nodded and placed himself at one of the most distant, tiny tables he could find that wasn't in a booth.

Keeping an eye out on the screens, he waited with his drink, for them to be empty.

Nobody paid him much heed, besides he'd been here before.

Got banned from here before too, but was eventually allowed back in.

Granted he'd lied a little to do so, but he was never going to bring that up to anyone.

Secrets were not to be spoken of.

While one he got somewhat regularly his drink didn't last long and all of the now fluid-less plastic bag was crumpled up inside the half-circle 'lid' of the drink like a neat piece of trash compacting itself down.

His chair scraped along the ground as he got up and positioned himself at one of the screens.

A Job board.

Advertising all of the peculiar, scummy and somewhat nefarious jobs.

Mercenary work essentially, even if there were many who fell outright into the category of hired crime.

Then again there were many who probably saw no difference between the two but internally Cyclonus separated the two sorts and sifted through what he found acceptable and to his standards.

Which wasn't any.

The fresh deals were gone, taken by those who didn't have some soft-bipedal alien causing distractions.

If he had arrived the next morning like he thought he was going to he probably would have gotten a shot at a better listing of a new day's selection.

Without a word, Cyclonus was out the building and into the fresh air of the station.

There was always the option that someone somewhere had requested his services specifically but he'd get a notification of that.

He didn't need to exchange any words anyway, he was just here to sort himself out with a few new items, maybe find a possible new job and go.

Just like always.

A bonus of this place was that many stalls were temporary and got replaced regularly, it gave the place an inexhaustible supply of new business.

Giving the ceiling a long look, Cyclonus thought about how he'd never been around ALL of this massive place, the sheer size of the inside of its mouth alone was enough to fit a few small planets in and with the way buildings tended to cover any spare space it would be impossible for anyone to see all of this place at once.

This also meant that unless you were going to one of the many constant stands for what you needed you'd have to just wander around, hoping you weren't getting lost along with hoping that you would stumble across a stall that had what you wanted.

It was also a bit easier when you were in the parts of the place that weren't so densely fitted with buildings.

He should probably look for a place that sold a repair kit for hard-light holograms.

Then again a stall that showed off an array of swords was also to his side and far more distracting.

He at least had the self-control not to approach it and end up being drawn into a sale.

Important things first, it'd only end up as decoration anyway he thought to himself as he still headed over to the stand and examined what it had.

The stand owner began looking at him hopefully and Cyclonus did his best to ignore that look as he eventually pried himself away from the wares.

Important things first he told himself.

He didn't look through his food storage.

With a quiet irritated huff, Cyclonus remembered giving that stowaway a drink and not checking any of his food supplies when he got himself something, a stupid mistake.

Cyclonus made a mental note to go back and check, but give it a while longer to ensure his 'guest' was gone completely, he didn't want any more visitors.

It was giving him a headache.

He didn't check anything before leaving.

With a low grumble, he rubbed his face in irritation, such sloppy organisation.

Maybe he could let off on the 'important' tasks and allow for a little self-indulgence, as long as he didn't forget to actually check for anything he needed he'd be alright.

No, he did remember something he needed.

Rousing himself from his thoughts Cyclonus twirled on the spot trying to get a bearing of where he was.

He'd zoned out and wandered around as he thought again.

Entities of various size, shape and species bustled around him as he looked over the surrounding stalls.

Somehow he'd wandered into an area filled to the brim with fabrics, the rolls of cloth and lace were carefully arranged over each counter, all trying to show off their variety and textures and draw you to their specific stalls.

Cyclonus quietly curled his lip.

If he needed some useless, pompous rag for nothing more than cleaning he'd come back.

Leaving the street Cyclonus passed through several emptier places, venturing into the more 'inhabited' areas of the station, they weren't as busy as the 'shopping' parts, mostly used by those who lived there, or others seeking a quieter passageway.

Or the occasional lost person.

Either way a few turns later and Cyclonus was back out onto a slightly more developed section of 'shops'.

The kind that actually had metal structures around them and required you to walk into them.

Avoiding the few that were actually bars or betting rings, Cyclonus slipped through a door after spotting something mechanical in its window.

This store was filled, wall-to-wall with various odds and sods.

He needed a new water filtration unit.

Not that the one he had was broken but it was certainly old and needed a few parts replacing.

Tedious and boring, but that was life, his life, just going by and doing his work by himself.

The shop had dim blue lights and reeked of the various different kinds of oils and fluids found in engines.

The shopkeeper looked like he was probably the source of said oily smells.

It took a few minutes of rummaging through boxes and piles of wires and metal knickknacks but Cyclonus quickly fell upon his amazing prize and held the filter out to the shopkeeper before paying the necessary price.

A thrilling conclusion to the water-filter saga.

Upon exiting Cyclonus decided there had been more than enough time for the primitive biped to have moved on and leave him a safe passage back to his ship with no risk of tagalongs.

Deciding to follow the route he came Cyclonus ducked back into the living areas, shuffling around the ill-organised pathways between the houses, he found the pathway blocked.

Blocked.

Blocked by a bunch of twats wearing stupid helmets, with four glassy patches at the front.

Just wanting to get back to his ship without removing someone's spinal column Cyclonus dipped into a side-street and trailed off.

* * *

Well, there was nothing new about this.

The whole 'being on your own again' situation that is.

The 'being inside a giant floating head in space surrounded by aliens' was thoroughly new and quite intense.

Gavin couldn't even see the ceiling of this place, he just had some sort of awareness that he was probably staring AT a ceiling if there even was one and it hadn't been removed for some reason or another.

Gavin looked down from the platform.

The only alien he recognised had quickly vanished across the horizon of shacks and shoddy buildings, leaving the immense array of other alien life teeming before the human's eyes.

He had the stiff-limbed feeling again as he slowly plucked his legs from the floor pushing them into a slow meandering path to a slope leading away from the shipyard.

Quietly the words 'you're all new and strange here' echoed back through Gavin's mind as several alien faces turned to give him looks and double-takes as he shuffled down to the ground, silently raising some interest in the people around him.

Thankfully his novelty didn't seem to mean much, as none of them approached him and neither did they stare for too long.

Whether it was the new landscape, the new atmosphere, the mass of people or their repeated glances leaving several eyes examining him at any one time, Gavin felt a heavy tight knot in his chest again.

The horrible familiar well of panic and confusion because once again he was someplace he didn't know with zero ideas of what to do or how to manage.

At least this time there wasn't any blood.


	4. Chapter 4

Walking the so-called streets of this place gave Gavin the vibe of a dingy shopping mall where the floor was just that bit too organic looking to be comfortable.

If anything looking at the floor was making Gavin feel a little ill, even when not looking at it, the fact it was slightly softer than the usual type of inorganic or wood flooring he was used to still made the back of his throat tickle like it was preparing for the onslaught of last night's dinner returning for more.

Finding ways to distract himself Gavin looked around the place, one of these stalls had to sell something he recognised, or something he could associate with, hell maybe even sell something that could help him.

He still had the language barrier to deal with AND he was skint without a space-penny to his name.

Perhaps he should act upon the prior advice he was given and hope for some extraterrestrial help.

Or more accurately Gavin began looking over the array of aliens meandering around the place, living their space-y lives, in hopes of spotting one he recognised.

After all, there were so many aliens here maybe some sci-fi show had accurately predicted what one looked like.

Then again he hardly thought a Vulcan was just going to pop out of a shop throwing the live-long-and-prosper schtick.

He could pretend though.

Maybe in the meantime, some alien would take pity on his no doubt gormless expression and help.

It wasn't playing cute but he preferred it to that option.

It at least felt as if he'd keep some dignity that way.

Quietly he pushed himself up against a wall and just watched, some alien had to do something at some point.

It had to, it just had to.

After all, he had no idea what alien was what, which ones would misinterpret a human 'Hello' as 'I spit on your mother's grave' and promptly slaughter him for the disrespect.

The entire place was like a hive bustling with activity and a high pitched drone poked irritably at Gavin's ears, he didn't like it.

He never liked being in crowds of people he didn't recognise, wasn't fond of crowds of people he knew either but regardless the crowds moved on by without him, nothing more than a rare glance being thrown in his direction by some curious passerby.

What was making that awful droning noise?

That thing looked like walking origami, that thing looked like the product of an elephant and a car's one-night stand, that thing looked like it crawled out of a B-movie.

Something was still making a high pitched noise and it was awfully, painfully loud.

No one else seemed to hear it, or be disturbed by it and Gavin heaved a deep heavy breath.

It was a hard and shaky breath and Gavin felt his eyes roll.

Twirling against the wall Gavin burst inside the place.

It was cool compared to outside, pale with bright lights and had shelves lined with items.

It was nicer and also quiet as the droning noise quickly ebbed away and breathing gradually became much smoother.

Something sat behind a counter, the counter had some items on it too, a few looked to be floating about of their own accord.

The entity looked like it had been made from play-doh with two sharp teeth jutting from its top jaw.

It regarded Gavin with a brief look of curiosity before turning it's flabby head back down to something on its desk that was clearly more interesting.

Looking about the place, Gavin decided to block out many of its features and just settle on thinking of the place a small convenience store mixed with a newsagents.

That was it, a completely normal place, nothing new or stressful.

Unable to prevent himself from tossing many glances at the alien clerk Gavin quickly scooted around the shelves putting himself in a relatively secluded space.

His bag felt heavy against his back as he sagged onto something thick and plastic and somewhat spherical, a tiny indent along its surface, the only indicator it had a lid.

Gavin didn't care, it was cold and hard, something real and physical.

A tangible thing he could touch and distract himself with.

Propping himself up against it with his elbows Gavin ran his fingers through his hair.

This place probably didn't sell a communicator-type-thingy and he doubted he could trade a few oranges with the putty-person for something.

Then again he felt a little bad for barging in, hiding and then leaving.

Maybe this place would have something recognisable.

Quietly composing himself, Gavin rubbed at his face and tried to put on his coolest smoothest walk as he slowly slid out from behind the shelf.

The clerk regarded him with little more than a raised eyebrow.

Possibly, it was hard to tell, either way, its look didn't linger long as something else entered the store.

Something that looked like an intestine-shaped fly with five eyes that scuttled over to the counter, took one of those bizarre floating objects, dropped something that looked like a leaf, beeped at the clerk then scuttled out.

Somewhere in the back of his mind a voice monotonously spoke to him.

Breathe 1-2-3, Out 1-2-3.

He can handle this.

He can.

Biting his lip, Gavin turned his attention back to what was in front of him, the motion spasmodic and jerky as he turned to avoid the clerks gaze as the alien went to look at him again.

This shelf had pots of goops on it, the goops came in various different colours and each row was fronted by a smaller pot of goop that each had some of their contents missing.

They were fucking testers.

Finally allowing a grin to form on his face Gavin looked over the pots.

Free samples that any individual could slap on themselves and give it a test before buying.

Just like the makeup sections in Earth-stores.

Of all the things to find some recognisable solace in, the idea it was space-makeup made Gavin very amused and very happy.

It was silly and good and made a quiet knot in his gut shrink.

He was slowly getting there.

He can do it.

"All progress is good progress" he quietly muttered to himself remembering words spoken to him in an office by someone wearing glasses with a degree as they listened to what Gavin said.

Feeling a little prick of confidence Gavin grabbed the tiny pot of goop that had a bright fuschia coloured stuff in it.

Thumbing the lid off Gavin wiped a bit of the slightly-used sample onto a finger.

It smelt like fried chicken.

Curious but not an awful smell, Gavin smeared a little onto the back of his hand.

Smooth, retained colour well.

It was a pretty chicken-scented paste and the texture of it wasn't that bad.

Without a second thought, Gavin ran his finger round his lips and careful not to smear it everywhere.

Sadly it tasted like plastic as a little bit made its way into his mouth.

Not vocalising the wave of disgust that came over him from such a gross flavour Gavin popped the lid back on and stuck it back on the shelf.

His lips and the back of his hand were now fuschia.

The sensible part of his mind reeled in embarrassment, this stuff could be permanent.

A permanent fuschia hand, how stupid.

The clerk didn't seem to mind and in fact had been watching him the entire time as he messed about with the goop.

A lump of embarrassment and worry perched itself in Gavin's throat when he noticed it's gaze.

Quietly the clerk just started to nod at him before actively pulling up a piece of paper to read.

A quiet seal of approval from an alien.

Hopefully, for all he knew a nod might be it's equivalent to a scrunched up look of disgust.

Choosing to think of it as an approving gesture, Gavin darted out of the shop door, hoping to ride the high of randomly given approval from a stranger and get things done.

Something good.

He did it!

Take that therapist-doctor-jackass!

Stress, anger and the past weren't controlling him!

Embarrassment, panic and a crushing sense of inadequacy did as now out in the open Gavin noticed he was one of the smallest things there and in a thick crowd.

The knot in his gut came back with force and twisted all of his innards into itself.

Was it just him or is it getting hot in this space station?

Locating some kind of gap in the bodies Gavin lurched forwards.

Surging into a run, each stretched out leap straining his leg muscles Gavin bolted down between two shops.

It wasn't enough.

He darted across another 'street'.

And another, he changed direction, twisting about looking for anything remotely clear and empty.

A nagging weight in his head told him he didn't have much time and he opted for a vaguely quiet section between two shops.

Breathe 1-2-3, out 1-2-3, breathe 1-2-3, out 1-2-3.

Oh god, this crap was actually becoming useful.

He pressed his hand to the wall, it was cold and real.

He was there, he was okay, no injuries, no one was actually looking at him, it was all in his head, it was fine, 1-2-3.

He quietly patted the wall keeping a repetitive motion going, and he ignored the uneasy feeling of wanting to throw up from an unwarranted surge of stress.

It was okay, he can do it, he will survive.

Gavin's hands still trembled and shook vigorously.

Why was that deer shaped like a toe?

Gavin wasn't sure but he was fairly certain his face twisted into some expression of disgust.

Probably very rude, it may well be pretty for a Toe-deer.

But to Gavin the bemused stocky alien was quite hideous.

Something, do something.

He can do it.

Around what Gavin assumed to be its waist it had a belt with various boxes clipped to it.

Getting an idea for something he can do, something sensible and totally practical, Gavin took off his backpack and opened it.

The toe-deer seemed somewhat interested and its ears flicked up as Gavin pulled out two oranges.

Holding the oranges out Gavin pointed at one of the boxes around its waist and waved the fruit at it.

It's flat face looked between the box and to the oranges. Quietly it took a sniff revealing it's nose to be a concerningly large hole on it's 'face'.

It cocked its head and Gavin quickly pulled out another orange.

Eyeing the third offering the alien plucked the box off its belt and looked between it and the oranges.

Quietly it held it out and kind of waved it back and forth.

Gavin nodded and hoped it was getting the idea.

Slowly Gavin moved the oranges closer to it and matching his slowness the aliens other arm stretched out.

Carefully it patted the fruit before scooping them out of Gavin's hand.

It gave them another sniff before tentatively holding its box out slightly further.

Fucking success!

Gavin carefully lifted the box from the alien and gently put it into his backpack.

He traded, he did something.

Fucking yes.

Thankfully the alien made the first move as with it's new items it quietly meandered out from the small passageway.

God damn, Gavin was doing great.

Toe-Deers? No problem, fuck yeah.

Fuck you Cyclonus, no need to 'play cute' here, this human can do shit!.

In regards to purple crustacean-like aliens, somewhere across the vastness that composed this space station Cyclonus was utterly lost.

Some assholes had been blocking the way and Cyclonus had decided to go a different route to avoid unnecessary social contact.

Except now he'd gotten lost.

Brilliant.

Definitely even more brilliant as he stared at something half his size.

Said thing stared back at him too with huge green eyes.

Neither moved, the thing stared with an unreadable expression and Cyclonus stared back thinking about how he didn't want to make any sudden movements around something that had teeth like THAT.


	5. Chapter 5

It wasn't as tall as him sure, but it was still big.

Its teeth were even bigger, propping its jaw open on a constant gaping snarl.

Hell, this beast even seemed armoured.

It arms were pathetic but it had two strong legs, and who needs arms when you could leap at something and bite it in half without a second thought?.

Bulbous green eyes betrayed no thought and continued to vacantly stare at an increasingly annoyed target.

Cyclonus nipped at his lower lip, frowning deeply. It was alive but not moving, not giving off any signals as to its intent and that was annoying.

He wanted to move, he wanted to leave.

Common sense kept him rooted to the spot as he tried to judge the unjudgeable look on the creature's face.

Cyclonus decided to give it a return snarl, it quietly turned it's head to the side as if processing the gesture.

Great.

It was stupid.

A sigh graced his throat and Cyclonus drew himself upright.

Nothing to worry about as he flicked his quills at the thing, that it understood as it took a step backwards allowing Cyclonus to lose interest in it.

Cyclonus looked to his hands and checked over the water filter in his hands.

All this for just getting a water filter.

It was slightly more interesting than usual but he wasn't in the mood for it today.

He blinked as light reflected off the filter.

And blinked again when a sudden quiet thudding ended with his hands ending up in something warm and wet.

The creature had apparently found the glinting piece of metal interesting and had lumbered up, wrapping its jaws around Cyclonus hands barely held out before his chest.

Armoured plated jaws were wrapped around his wrists.

Any thoughts connecting to what he should do next ceased to exist.

It seemed smart enough to recognise its own strength as it's oversized teeth merely caged Cyclonus's wrists, holding them in place.

In the horridly damp cavern of its mouth, a rubbery tongue shot out and began licking at the trapped hands.

Almost on reflex Cyclonus let go of everything as soon as he felt it's tongue.

Quickly the creature scuttled back and in front of a startled bemused Cyclonus, it suddenly tongued his water filter in between its jaws.

Curiously it used it's tongue to roll the filter over and its teeth to hold it down.

Given the size of its head, it practically needed to lean to the side in order to allow its spindly arm to reach around and pluck the filter from its teeth and wave it in front of its eyes.

A water filter that was now dented, bent, had a hole in and covered in thick slobber.

A part of his mind still struggled to comprehend everything that just happened.

Not every day some bug-eyed creature licked a filter out of your hands.

"That, was MINE" Cyclonus settled on yelling, offended at the creature.

The thing let out some kind of "glurck" noise before spinning on the spot and hightailing it out of there.

The snarl rose in his throat again and with an irritated howl, Cyclonus charged after it.

It was clearly awkward on land, it's form lumbered from side to side in front of him, but it kept a good lead on him, it's strange gait having no impact on its speed.

It ignored all the signs of life near it and ducked quickly into a tunnel, a fleshy hole in the wall.

The tunnel was only just big enough for the two of them if Cyclonus decided to jump his horns would get wedged into the ceiling.

A ceiling that seemed to have a rippled pattern in it, one that betrayed it's totally organic nature.

This was a part of the station untouched and unmodified.

Cyclonus was chasing the thing into the very flesh of this dead ancient.

And just like any network of organic tubes it suddenly branched off and the creature dove down one of the new tubes.

It kept doing so.

Another tube, and another tube.

Gradually the tubes got smaller and before a sensible thought such as "this is only getting you further lost" could cross Cyclonus's mind he built up speed.

The creature was stuck, its legs and tail flailed as it tried to squeeze through a small opening.

A wet pop accompanied it as it finally got it's bulk through.

The hole was small for it but Cyclonus only had to curl up to get through.

To get through to a drop.

It wasn't a particularly large drop but jarring enough to startle Cyclonus from his single-minded chase intent on getting some kind of small, petty revenge on a beast for stealing and ruining his stuff.

The ledge below met him with a thud and Cyclonus gasped as his legs tumbled over the edge, leaving him hanging.

This new area was deep as it was tall, and that wasn't comforting as Cyclonus couldn't see the top.

It wasn't very wide, however, yet the platform that ran along the wall like a path clearly stuck out with enough width to support Cyclonus and the creature side-by-side.

Unphased by his problems said creature was already waddling along at high speed and down another tunnel.

Alright, time to check out the situation.

Cyclonus was now hanging over a drop of an unknown depth after chasing a creature for petty reasons down an uncharted tunnel.

Fantastic.

This should go into a list of his top five plans, Cyclonus groaned resting his head on the ledge.

He looked around the area for anything that could help him.

Some of the tunnels were lit up, or at least wherever they lead to had lights.

This was not the only ledge as several more ran along the walls like pathways, all dotted with a line of tunnels.

The wet, slightly soft feeling of the ledge he was clinging to didn't lend much to the idea of climbing up, especially as Cyclonus tried kicking out, hoping to get some extra grip.

Yet there was nothing and his arms were starting to fail.

Taking his chances, he didn't want to lose all strength in his arms before moving, he let go swinging himself inwards he hoped it would be enough.

The ledge below him was further away than it looked, but not far enough.

Not far enough to give him space.

He landed on his rear at the lip of the ledge unceremoniously letting out a grunting hiss that gradually evolved into a yell as he continued falling, rolling backwards off the platform into the abyss.

It wasn't how he expected to die, falling to his death, screaming in the back end of nowhere.

No, he always envisioned something with more glory and far more honour to it than this.

The ledges vanished and the walls began closing in a little as Cyclonus barely caught a glimpse of the land below, the floor covered in huge bulbous lumps rushing upwards to meet him.

* * *

Find all the positives in a negative.

Breathe deeply and breathe out slowly.

Find something familiar and comforting.

Yes, they were working, to an extent.

Gavin felt heavy lumps form quickly in his throat a new one coming barely five seconds after he calmed down enough to dispel the one before.

He'd done this before.

He'd picked up and moved to a new city before, with no money and no place to go.

It was no different from that.

Just this time he was inside a giant head, all the new people were new species and aliens, and this time he also had a language barrier.

Also combined with the possibility something might kill him be it by purpose or accident.

Something that looked awkwardly like a squid-bat-lizard gracefully strode past, blissfully unaware of the panic-stricken human.

His jumper was familiar.

Gavin twiddled the fabric between his fingers.

Yeah, familiar, his favourite in fact.

He loved this jumper, it was nice, he'd had it for ages and planned to keep it for many more.

It was a good jumper.

A very good one he mused as he fumbled with the rim of it, keeping that in his mind as he slowly stepped forwards weaving a way through the crowd.

Glancing around he saw one building that had many seats inside, a lot of them empty.

Good, he made a beeline over to it.

The door wasn't too heavy as Gavin pushed into it, the air within the building heavy with the scent of repeated use, but gladly it wasn't a bad kind of 'used' smell, a smell that just made out a place of many people.

It was fine.

It was okay.

Breathe.

A majority of the aliens in here were ridiculously fluffy like they were covered in cotton balls.

As far as Gavin knew none of them gave him a look as he stumbled through the chairs to a seat by a wall.

Quiet and out the way.

Something suddenly whistled and Gavin yelped.

The alien that had slipped over to his table shuffled back slightly alarmed.

Some fluff was wrapped around a pad while a pen floated seemingly of its own accord just above the pad.

A waiter… waitress… order taker.

Of course.

Why wouldn't there be one?

It whistled again, the tune varying in pitch as it waved the pad in its grasp.

With zero idea of what to do Gavin looked around the room, on one side there looked to be something like a list.

He grabbed his backpack and plucked out two oranges, he could do this again.

"New here?" Gavin said quietly as he made the 'trade' gesture.

It probably had no idea what he was on about.

How did all the aliens here understand each other anyway?

They were all different species, and they weren't all speaking some galactic language.

"Trade? Uh, for a drink… liquid?" Gavin pushed the two fruit further towards it and made a drinking motion with one hand.

It whistled and took them off him, it spun on the spot.

Looking at the list on the wall maybe?

When it spun back Gavin nodded blankly.

Fuck he hoped he was making some kind of sense.

It began whistling again and this time the whistle slowly lowered in pitch and changed

"Ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssweeeiiiiiink"

It gave no time to respond as it slid away with oranges in hand.

Panic or exhilaration ran rampant through Gavin's chest.

He'd done something.

Again.

He did it!.

Breathe in, breathe out.

This was going great.

Completely he knew it, it had to be.

Silently the thing slipped over and plopped a sphere in front of Gavin.

Gavin gave it a nod, hoping it was some kind of semi-decent gesture to it.

It gave no indication either way as it went over to a different table and began conversing with them instead.

Gavin's throat dried up.

Be it by worry or genuine thirst Gavin was suddenly unsure.

The sphere before him had no top, showing the pale blue liquid within.

It looked thick but weighed nothing as Gavin lifted it up and swapped it between his hands.

As he moved the liquid moved too, it was actually a pretty thin liquid as it flicked about erratically.

Well if it was going to kill him, it'd kill him.

Gavin pressed the opening to his lips and let it flood his mouth as he drained the entire sphere.

He plopped it back down and promptly grabbed his bag, holding onto the straps tightly ready to face death.

Or face the rising vomit that was threatening to happen.

Or was it?

Something was running down his back, it was hot.

So hot.

He couldn't breathe.

Nose, mouth, nothing no air.

He couldn't.

His tongue felt thick and heavy and his mouth felt like it was filled with hot ooze.

A numbing sensation.

A type of numbness he'd tasted before in an unsavoury pub when he'd upset a bunch of people.

It was sickening and Gavin stumbled to the door, his eyesight throbbing, tears building up in his eyes.

He tumbled out the doorway, trying to get to the cooler air.

It didn't work, he could still taste it.

He didn't like this taste.

It tasted like a bad memory.


	6. Chapter 6

It was suffocating.

Horribly awfully smothering.

Like something was trying to peer inside him.

Not at all helped by the numbing all-over sensation of hitting into something.

Hard.

But now the world was a thick heavy substance keeping him afloat in a strange bubble.

A bubble of non-existence.

It was strange.

Just... Strange.

He didn't feel real anymore.

Reality gradually appeared through muffled voices.

Something sounding wet came closer to him and he became aware of thin graspers wrapping themselves around his arms and another around his chest and waist.

Cyclonus woke up.

The strange tumorous lump he was somehow inside slowly let him out, it left him covered in an unknown fluid as he flopped out of it, the lump resealing itself immediately after he left it's inside.

"No, this is bad"

There was a voice.

He recognised it.

No, he didn't, he recognised the language.

The ancient language of their people, no, HIS people.

The language both Decepticon and Autobot tongue descended from.

There weren't many people who knew their original, primal mother tongue.

His eyes barely functioned but the shapes before him were neither Autobot or Decepticon.

"At least we found it quickly"

"I'm surprised they still exist!"

"They won't for much longer if it disturbed you-know-who"

"If that's happened all our work would go to waste! We'd have to experience… THAT again..."

"It got stuck in the immune system, a part of it, we can work with this"

They chattered as though he wasn't there.

They spoke HIS language.

How DARE they?

The four figures before him were not Seibertronian.

Through bleary eyes, he could see they were grey… almost, it was as if they were somewhat see through.

Hairs or something bristled from the top of their bodies, from the bottom several strand-like arms coiled beneath them, something comparable to a face was in the middle of this strange shape.

They were also small, Cyclonus knew he'd stand above them and he was going to.

He was going to stand up, tall and proud, and demand to know why they're speaking as they are.

If only his body would stop betraying him, it didn't respond to any of his thoughts or commands.

"We can manipulate the situation, fool the systems into believing it to just be a foreign substance!" one chittered.

"Yes," another agreed "Then it can be convinced it was just some random debris provoking a small reaction..."

"And not a part of HIM" another finished.

"Yes, let us do that, we cannot allow him to wake up now" The last one nodded.

"Just convince the immune system to react on 'autopilot' something that won't disturb him"

"Agreed" the rest muttered and they all stood back, lining up they watched Cyclonus with… green, yes, green eyes. Colours were becoming easier to distinguish now and Cyclonus returned their look with a scowl.

"Aggressive isn't it?"

"Must be descended from one of those lines"

"Yes…"

Cyclonus was indeed getting aggressive at this point.

Not only were they speaking a language that did not belong to them but their smooth, flat tones made it incredibly hard to distinguish which was talking, they all seemed to run together.

One suddenly shouted, a short sharp snap of noise.

Cyclonus could feel some twinges in his arms again and he tried moving them.

Until that thing appeared again.

More of them.

The creature that he chased down here thudded into view, followed by another of it's kind.

They were identical, and possibly not even the same one that lead him here.

The four figures jabbed one of their thin limbs at him and the creatures nodded in understanding.

Their wide forms quickly eclipsed Cyclonus's view of the mysterious quartet as they advanced on him, wrapping their claws around his arms and heaving him into the air.

Without another sound, he was carried away.

Fury flowed through him as the creatures dumped him at the edge of the space station, again at the lip of one of those fleshy tunnels, the duo quickly retreating back into the depths of this place.

It was painful but after a breem or two Cyclonus could move again, no longer stiff and no longer covered in any unidentified substance.

Granted the only form of locomotion that was being granted to him was crawling, but it was movement nonetheless.

He didn't care who those creeps were, they were not going to dump him without an answer.

Thankful to be alone he didn't care about his appearance as he staggered back into the tunnel on his hands and knees.

At least like this, he was keeping a low profile and not making any noise whatsoever.

Then again as soon as he felt stable once more he stood up and jogged at a brisk pace, he didn't want to go slow anyway.

He knew how to speak that ancient tongue and as soon as the tunnel widened out into some kind of room he shouted.

"WHERE ARE YOU?"

It echoed around the chamber he was in and rattled through the tunnels.

Without an answer he continued to run, he could run back to where he was easy, it didn't take that long as he chased that first creature he'd be there in minutes.

"ANSWER ME" He called angrily.

"Go back now" oozed quietly from the walls.

"NO! WHO ARE YOU?" Cyclonus barked back "SHOW YOURSELVES"

"Lower your voice cretin!" The voice hissed back.

"Then. Show. Yourself." Cyclonus spun on the spot flashing a snarl to all areas of the room.

"You shouldn't have come here… this is not a place for your kind" It was unphased by his show of aggression.

"What do you mean MY kind? You're the one speaking OUR language! Our original language that is…" He huffed to thin air feeling awkward and out of place without an entity to focus his attention on.

"Your… Language?... Hm… Of course… They must have heard... and learnt… Curious... Tell me, is that why you came here?" The voice refused to show any shimmer of emotion.

"Partially… Now tell me, why won't you show yourself?" Cyclonus tried to pretend the emotionless responses weren't making him angrier than a response laced with any sort of feeling.

"We will not show ourselves to the likes of you, arrogant aren't you? Turn back, if you provoke the system anymore you will wish you were fighting our Sharkticons instead, or you could just go away and get another filter, such pathetic reasoning," A tiny twinge of contempt entered the voice.

"The immune system right, I heard you, I didn't understand what you were talking about… But I heard, This place is dead and you will not deter me with words and code names. Send those creatures after me I do not care, I want answers" Cyclonus stomped a foot on the ground and marched towards the one other opening in the room.

"Well feel free to walk to your death, we honestly couldn't care less. Your arrogance will be punished, at the very least you'll serve your purpose" The voice ebbed away to a quiet mumble "It'll have already devised something special to deal with you, we did our part"

"You did NOTHING!" Cyclonus snorted running down the tunnel, there was an unsettling feeling pulsing in his spark, his 'purpose'.

His purpose?

What purpose?

If anything that was just an invitation, an invitation to go find those little things and beat an answer out of them.

Demand to know why they spoke as they did, what they meant by purpose and of course just to find out what the hell they were on about anyway.

He was low, clearly on another level of the station and still at the bottom of the strange room he had been in earlier.

Hell, he'd even demand to know how they knew about the filter incident.

Gradually the fleshy tunnel opened out into the cavern he had been in before.

The cavernous place he really should have died in, not get sucked into a mass of gooey flesh and live.

It didn't matter, at least this way he could go out how he wanted to.

Fighting.

No one was present in this area, looking around there wasn't even a single shape travelling along the many ridges lining the walls.

With no one talking and the more enjoyable experience of standing on the ground and not falling helplessly Cyclonus could get a better feel of the room.

The sheer size drowned out his breathing into a smothering silence, somewhere in the distance he could hear something, a drop falling from somewhere and hitting the ground at regular intervals.

There wasn't even a breeze.

There was a dull quiet throbbing to this place now.

He argued with himself, was it worth shouting out again to get the voices attention?

Probably not.

But he could worm out some answers?

There weren't even any footsteps to mark where they had gone or where they had been, not even the heavy Sharkticons had left a trace.

He took a step forwards and everything took a step back.

The sudden lurching movement was sufficient to draw out a yelp as Cyclonus jumped backwards glaring at the environment which promptly stopped moving.

He was back where he fell, a slight discolouration in a vaguely bipedal shape left a temporary mark as to where he had once been.

Warily Cyclonus took another step forwards.

As if reacting to his presence the main lump, the one he fell into somehow, contracted.

It clenched tightly, practically bulging and splitting into two pieces.

Taking a step back Cyclonus watched as it wobbled and returned to normal.

He glanced around the area again.

This time he saw Sharkticons.

They were in the distance, their green eyes glinting like a sea of predatory stars, watching intently.

If they wanted a fight Cyclonus was more than happy to give as he stepped forth again, quills flicking upright and giving a snarl of encouragement.

Once more within its proximity, the lump bubbled again.

The Sharkticons noticed before Cyclonus and their eyes focused on that instead as if it took precedence.

Scowling Cyclonus watched their attention change to the lump, he knew how to get this party started.

The lump was within arms reach and Cyclonus swung outwards, fingers curled back, claws ready to slice the lump open.

The lump, however, reached out.

Something thick and bumpy swelled outwards to meet Cyclonus's claws, wide fingers wrapped around his arm and stopped his attack dead.

The Sharkticons fled.

The lump spat out another smaller lump and Cyclonus's arm began to burn.

Howling at the sudden attack Cyclonus swung his other arm, the blades along his forearm cut through the new, mobile lump easily and its arm was quickly withdrawn.

Cyclonus was never one to show weakness or panic but he couldn't help but cling to his arm, feeling his exo-plates the normally rough surface was now smooth as if it was being eroded, yet looked no different from the rest of him.

The lump, however, was in a similar predicament.

It stood a good head taller than Cyclonus, thick and wide, it had little shape but the form it took was obvious.

It looked a little like Cyclonus.

Cyclonus couldn't help but feel an unfortunate sense of deja vu as he remembered the mirror fiasco he'd just endured.

The horrible imitation stretched forwards, parts of it opened and spread outwards, trying to envelop what was before it.

Words failed Cyclonus, there was hardly anything to say.

"No" he whispered softly before turning and running away.

Elsewhere in an equally as organic-looking room, the quartet of aliens peered at what was going on.

"Hm, a somewhat duplicate cell designed purely to envelop and dissolve a single specific foreign body in the system" one crooned.

"Indeed, a clever solution"

"Yes, the longer he stays asleep the better, it was surprisingly easy to convince it that what it detected was not what it thought"

"Although this merit's a survey mission to check on the progress of our plan, send a Sharkticon out to track them, monitor what happens make sure it all goes smoothly"

There was a silent nod of agreement throughout the room and the four looked behind them where hundreds more of their kind watched on.


	7. Chapter 7

He's made mistakes.

Many mistakes.

But scrambling out of a fleshy tunnel and staggering through a few stalls of nick-knacks because a blob with a similar shape to you was on the prowl was definitely a new one.

If anyone had any similar experience he'd love to know, advice would be priceless right about now.

No one paid him any mind as he quickly straightened himself out and resumed walking down the streets, at least there was that.

The next logical step would be to get a weapon, but hopefully, one that wouldn't bring any of the local authorities down on his head.

Then again, was it even following him out of the tunnel? He didn't know and did not fancy risking that sort of information.

The section of shops he was in looked familiar and Cyclonus could visualise a route to go in his head, he had a vague idea of something he could do, something to test what exactly was going on and what he could do next.

Making sure to step over the few species who were far smaller than they should be Cyclonus kept his spine straight and made out like nothing was wrong, why would it be?

He was just being chased by some kind of blob.

This never happened before, why is it happening now? Of course, all his bloody luck was going downhill after managing to drag a primitive biped with him through space.

The damn creature must've been some kind of bad luck charm.

Cyclonus cursed himself in his head and continued along his way.

Soon he was at another more high-tech store, at least one with a metal building and a big viewing window at the front.

Another spare parts store.

Guess it was time to pay for yet another water filter.

The shopkeeper greeted him with a grunt, punctuated with high-pitched peep-noises.

Cyclonus nodded back to him and headed away from the filters.

The shop didn't smell as greasy as the other one and must have been built more recently as the walls bore a definitely untouched sheen and the shopkeep seemed far too cheery for someone worn down by repetitive menial tasks and customer service.

Either way, it'd work for the test Cyclonus was planning, he hoped, he had little idea what to do right now.

The range this store had was basic but covered a wide variety of ships and cruisers, catering to a wide market rather than specialising in a few.

It didn't look like they had much in the way of Seibertronian tech but it was fine, it wouldn't be too hard to interchange parts from other systems.

Cyclonus had been travelling long enough to know how to incorporate new and different parts into his ride… Just about.

The window shook and the loud thump echoed throughout the shop, having finally reached the filters Cyclonus ended up dropping the one he had picked up as the sound reverberated through the floor.

More grunting mixed with squeaks permeated the air as the shopkeeper stood up and mumbled angrily at what was happening.

Taking a careful look over his shoulder Cyclonus felt his spark sink.

It was the blob thing.

It had chased him and, somewhat confused by the notion of windows, it had slammed its body into the glass.

No bones to hold it in shape made the mass of the thing spread across the viewing window as the folds of flesh pulsed and rippled like a curious gastropod as it throbbed it's way across the glass, searching for a way in.

The shopkeeper seemed rightfully irritated as it vaulted over the counter and scuttled to the door on three legs, opening a buttoned pouch on its belt.

This was the cue to leave and Cyclonus slipped out after the vendor.

Reacting to his presence the blob sucked itself back into its crude imitation of a shape and swivelled its 'head' around.

The shopkeeper was still angry and yelled at it in its own tongue, and naturally, the blob ignored him.

Sucking itself away from the window completely with a loud pop the blob began to move again trying to follow Cyclonus.

It ignored the shopkeeper every time it tried to block its way and demand an answer for its behaviour only slowly swivelling its body around to try and step past them.

Angrily the shopkeeper pulled out a small gun from it's belt-pouch and began threatening it, from around the corner Cyclonus watched.

This was what he wanted.

The blob seemed indifferent to the weapon being waved at it and continued to ignore the shopkeeper.

The shopkeep promptly fired the weapon, a small heat-based blast sizzled across the blob's surface but ultimately the tiny flash of heat was swallowed into its mass.

Cyclonus cursed, as did the vendor, the blob seemed mildly more irritated and promptly pushed through the vendor as if he were nothing freeing its path to follow Cyclonus.

Pelting down the streets and pathways Cyclonus found himself climbing up to other levels hoping the upward motion would slow it down.

Well, now he know's it's not affected by heat-based weaponry.

Given the general stretchy consistency of it, Cyclonus had already ruled out bullets and melee weapons were also most likely useless.

Swords could work… maybe?

He could shear chunks of it off and whittle it down until it was tiny, then maybe trap it in a jar and jettison it into space!

Yes, that sounded perfect, although Cyclonus was basing this plan on the idea that whatever 'thoughts' that were driving it were localised in one area and by cutting its arm off would leave him with an inanimate lump of tissue rather than another blob with the intention of chasing him.

It was not his lucky day.

Of course, he had one other plan left, the cowardly one.

He could get in his ship and leave.

Then never come back.

No problem, just one place he could never go to.

Cyclonus felt personally angry at himself for thinking that.

What a useless waste of time of a plan.

He was a fighter! He was military! He was a warrior who was feared and respected!

Defeated by a blob.

To leave would be an embarrassment to everything he's ever done or accomplished, he can't.

Slowing down to a stop in one of the stairwells Cyclonus sagged and groaned, pressing his face into the wall in frustration.

'Please Primus, can I feel normal again? Or can I at least have my damn thoughts in order?' he mentally muttered to himself.

Trying to regain some composure - or dignity, Cyclonus stepped away from the wall, removing his face from it and he leant on the handrail, smoothly running his hand along it, he walked the remaining few flights rather than running.

He was far faster than that blob anyway.

His dry throat cracked and his breath felt arid.

He needed a drink and he needed to be alone.

So alone.

With nothing else to look at and the pathway clear to him, the journey to his ship felt like nothing.

Or maybe he had just zoned out again as he travelled back.

Such a bad habit.

The ship doors slid open and the empty halls hummed to his return as the generator clicked to life.

He didn't even bother with the lone chair in his food room.

Cyclonus grabbed a hold of a drink and sat on the floor.

He didn't want to bother with a chair anyway.

At least not for a few minutes as half-way through the glass the floor became uncomfortable and he slipped away to the control room.

Empty, quiet and ready to leave, just the way he liked it.

The way it should be.

He sank into his chair and drained the last few dregs of his drink and idly threw the empty cup on top of one of the flight instruments.

This chair was padded, this chair was comfy, this chair let Cyclonus sink into it slightly.

This chair clung onto him and made him feel relaxed.

He glanced at the other chair, he should probably remove it.

Definitely, then there would be no room for nosey bipeds putting themselves in places they don't belong.

Or to leave purple fuzz on the chairs.

Cyclonus sat upright and leant over to look at the other chair.

That human and it's fabric had left small tufts of purple fuzz on the chair.

With a growl Cyclonus rubbed his eyes, the room he'd dumped it in was probably still messy too.

It didn't matter, it wasn't coming back and he was not going to have anyone else aboard this ship, he could just lock the room away forever and continue on like nothing had happened.

A tiny light flashed on a screen next to him and Cyclonus gladly brought his attention away from the past few days and swung the screen closer to himself.

It was a proximity alert notifying him to something touching his ship.

An undeniable lump of twisted coldness formed and entangled his spark in it's twisted, heavy tendrils as Cyclonus realised he had no idea how long it had been, that blob could have caught up with him.

It could be at his ship right now.

He'd never be rid of it.

Acknowledging the alert he thumbed at the controls, hopefully trying to pull up an image of whatever it was on his ship, unfortunately, it wasn't like he had cameras stuck along the outside of his ship and no image came to him.

His claws tapped audibly against the glass now as he continued to try and pull some kind of answer up.

He could examine heat levels.

If he got a heat-snapshot of the ship's externals he could see its shape and tell- FUCK.

It worked, as he was thinking about it, the thermal imaging worked and he got a bad, blurry view of the exterior of his ship, with the snapshot primarily focused on the hull the perpetrator was hardly in view.

Even so, the rounded shape and bulbous points on top were distinct and recognisable.

One of those Primus-Damned Sharkticons.

Those creepy bastards were still watching him, no doubt taking perverse pleasure in his troubles.

Roughly shoving the screen away, Cyclonus was going to fulfil an earlier thought.

His fist was going to make direct, speedy contact to that things face.

Stealth was abandoned as any attempt to not stomp loudly to the door barely crossed his mind, and the Sharkticon was already facing him by the time the door opened.

Swollen green eyes looked at him with a mixture of stupidity, indifference, confusion and curiosity.

"Bay-stad!" Cyclonus yelled no doubt butchering the Earthly curse as he leapt forwards, wrapping his arms around the bulk of the beast.

It let out a panicked squall as it staggered back, stumpy legs struggling to find ground as it's already awkward weight was thrown off-centre.

The creature toppled over with Cyclonus on top, several people coming in and out of their ships saw the scuffle going on and promptly removed themselves from the area, unwilling to watch the display.

The creature flailed beneath him, but it's sadly stumpy limbs weren't too much of an issue but it's thick body tapered out into a tail, one that bore a prickly-club-like appendage.

That was an issue, it already landed one hit already, smashing the club into Cyclonus's shoulder.

It hurt.

Intensely, in fact, his whole arm felt numb under the throbbing pain.

Light glinted at him from the creature.

Or more accurately it's head.

Those creeps WERE watching him.

Jammed into the beast's armoured skull were two metal antennae.

"I will not forget you!" Cyclonus screeched as he grabbed the metal things, yanking them to the side.

The Sharkticon screeched and squealed like it's life depended on it, all sense of direction it had seemed to vanish as its flailing became directionless and panicked.

It was an awful noise that pierced directly through Cyclonus's skull but he continued to pull on them.

It's thick skull and the depth at which these things were embedded made them impossible to totally remove but the thin metal quickly twisted and snapped.

Finally, the Sharkticon rolled him off, but Cyclonus didn't care, at least THEY weren't watching him.

Now slaughtering this thing was more a matter of making a point, and a point he was going to make.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N:** Dear kindly anonymous person, thank you, I am glad you're enjoying it. Your review served as a perfect reminder of something very important for this AU.  
For art, drawings and extra tidbits please visit:

Space-Vagabonds at Tumblr. Sorry it was hyperlinked but this site seems to hate links of any sort.

Heck even leave a request I'll probably draw it!

* * *

The Sharkticon was by no means dead, the antennae not a part of its natural biology but clearly integrated into its nervous system.

It waddled about on the spot, a huge mouth gaping with equally as huge teeth meshing together and snarling.

Regardless it wouldn't last much longer, Cyclonus wasn't going to give them their 'pet' back he wasn't going to give them anything but a reason to fear or be wary of crossing him again.

He'd gladly take on their entire disgusting shark-thing army just to prove that to them.

Taking the necessary steps forwards Cyclonus wrapped his arms behind its head and tried to heave the beast off the floor.

While dim, even the most stupid of creatures could and would recognise something that means it harm.

The Sharkticon began hissing and trying to dig it's feet into the ground, stubby claws trying to grasp at the floor, trying to get a hold of anything to keep it stable.

It was heavy but Cyclonus pulled it off the ground, leaning backwards Cyclonus couldn't keep himself upright but for long but he didn't need to.

The stubby creature got flipped over his head.

Its face was already somewhat flat so the loud impact of the suplex throbbed through its body, like vibrations through its bones.

Bruised and streaming blood from a few cracked teeth it was largely dazed from the attack.

Unfortunately, with a mouth taking up most of it's front a direct punch would be putting your fist straight into its gullet.

Feeling his bioluminescent spots flash with adrenaline and fighting fury Cyclonus rattled his quills, the clattering noise drawing the stumbling creature's attention to him.

Swinging his arm down like a hammer Cyclonus thumped it on the head.

Even without armour it's skull was definitely thick, that barely did a thing as the unphased beast lurched forwards pushing Cyclonus onto his back.

It was damn heavy and left him winded and wheezing, it's stubby, thick body dropped firmly on top of Cyclonus pinning him down.

Trying to take in gasps of air Cyclonus could barely focus on breathing, he had to grab the Sharkticons face a hand on each jaw trying desperately to keep those death-dealing jaws from wrapping around his head.

It was not easy.

Sharp points of armour and the occasional slip around its teeth cut into Cyclonus's fingers leaving short smears of purple across its face.

It liked that.

It drooled.

Cyclonus quickly found his entire front being drizzled in thick saliva as the lumbering beast became energetic at the first taste of it's 'meal'.

With a more desperate urge to get the bloated thing off him Cyclonus turned his efforts to trying to throw the thing off himself.

Its underside was just as flabby as you'd expect from such a hefty squat thing, letting Cyclonus's hands sink into its mass practically to his wrists.

He still could not lever it's weight off himself as one hand was on its chin trying to keep its drool-stained jaws in the air and away from his face.

Grabbing a handful of its soft underbelly Cyclonus dug his claws in and pulled as hard as he could.

The thing shrieked and howled, its stout legs immediately flailing off the floor trying to kick and squirm.

The softer skin easily popped under the pressure from Cyclonus's claws and his fingertips were quickly embedded into its flesh.

It promptly did the work for him and with a hop-like motion, it swung itself off Cyclonus.

The floor must've been cool as it promptly flopped down, pressing its underside to the ground with a wheezy growl.

Cyclonus was glad for the release as he staggered upright breathing unhindered.

On the floor, the Sharkticon reacted to his presence.

Pathetically wobbling its limbs the fish-like creature wiggled until it managed to turn around on the spot, never once lifting its belly from the ground.

It was a little less intimidating flat on the ground, gnashing its teeth threateningly.

And also much slower.

It continued to wobble and shake in an almost comical matter, his hands and feet scrabbling loudly against the smooth floor as it 'swam' forwards.

Cyclonus walked away.

It turned and tried to follow him again.

Another few steps and the Sharkticon had to stop and take the time to readjust itself.

At that point, it was a stare down.

It probably still had some kind of neural additions to its senses, only the antennae came out when Cyclonus had pulled.

He found himself squinting at the creature.

Hoping that somewhere, somehow those creeps were watching him still.

He wasn't expecting it to have 'recovered' already.

The Sharkticon sprung forwards with surprising speed and strength, ramming into Cyclonus the Sharkticon blew him straight off his feet. Cyclonus was sent tumbling back, slamming into one of his own ships landing gears while the Sharkticon flopped down a few feet away.

Cyclonus hurt.

Everything hurt.

All over his body various pressure points from his most recent fights throbbed with a dull agonising pain, not fully healed yet, stable but weak and now reminding him oh-so-vigorously of their presence.

The Sharkticon was advancing for another hit, so Cyclonus stood up, ready to give it another round.

Except he doesn't stand up arm first.

Twirling round to find yourself face-to-face with a crude approximation of your own head was not in the least bit pleasing, even still Cyclonus probably won't admit to the startled squeak that happened.

It had its arm wrapped around his forearm, the globular limb pulsating as is spread across the surface of his arm.

"N... no!" Cyclonus managed as it tried to take a step forward to smother him entirely.

Backing up, the blobs arm stretched to keep a hold of him but not moving to keep up.

Yet with panic creeping its way around his spark Cyclonus wasn't going to stop, the tension upon his arm was increasing with every step taken but the reappearance of the burning sensation from its touch was more than enough to drive his need to escape.

The Sharkticon.

The damn Sharkticon was retreating, it was going to leave.

Now the tug on his arm felt as though he was about to lose it if he dared stretch the blob out any further, the blob treated his escape with apathy as it began stretching out again, forcing its body forwards in a mass of arm-like strands each one eager to grab Cyclonus in their death hold.

Cyclonus ran.

He was not going to die like this.

With the blob around his arm, his running only resulted in him skidding on the spot and if anything sliding back a millimetre.

The tugging was getting too much.

A leap, if anything, was more a flop to the ground.

Yet it was enough.

His free arm wrapped around the club-like end of the Sharkticons tail.

The Sharkticon squeaked in surprise as it found itself falling back on its rump.

It rolled onto it's spiked back trying to bite and struggle it's way free.

Even for it, the sight of the advancing blob was becoming distressing.

Feeling the rising emotion of 'i'll probably regret this later' Cyclonus made for the only thing he could and pulled the tail closer to himself and bit it.

The Sharkticon shrieked as the thinner, flexible armour around its tail was no match for the teeth that sunk into it.

Spitting the tail out and coughing up its overly salty blood Cyclonus didn't need to hold on anymore, the creature was furiously snarling at him and was ready to attack.

It lunged forwards and Cyclonus grabbed its head, forcing it down he tried to climb over it, struggling he couldn't do such a motion and instead ended up pressing its mouth into the floor and wiping his blob-covered arm over its face.

It didn't like that and went for another bite, it would have to make do as Cyclonus put his arm through its jaws and the teeth sunk into the gloopy 'barrier', the thick consistency of the blob protecting Cyclonus's arm.

Wrapping his remaining arm around the Sharkticon Cyclonus rolled over, putting it on top.

Around them the stretching tendrils of the blob were almost cage-like, sealing them in, to a slow death.

Kicking the Sharkticon he managed to press it into one of the surrounding tendrils and like the trap it resembled, all arms were on it.

It was wrenched from Cyclonus's arm taking a few blob-chunks with it and quickly tangled and smothered by the pale oozing flesh.

Cyclonus watched in horror as the blob tried to smother the Sharkticon, but it was the wrong shape, bits and parts of it poked out its body.

The blob was confused with its not-Cyclonus prey wavering from side to side as it tried to smother the creature but its shape was wrong, it was not made to kill this specifically.

But it still could.

The Sharkticons shell had been sizzling and burning under the blobs acidic presence but it was ultimately undone when it's softened, burnt form was crushed.

Slowly the blob had begun contracting, squeezing in on the Sharkticon, giving it only a few short gurgling rasps before the wet crunch of its body becoming much much thinner.

Cyclonus had stopped watching by the time the blob began to crush the creature, he'd run to his ship, wiping his arm on the floor beforehand, dislodging the clumps left eating away at it.

His hands were shaking, the ship's automatic lock seemed to be in so many places at once. Why did he set it to lock right after him? He should've left it open when coming to fight that Sharkticon.

His ship wobbled slightly as the blob slammed a 'fist' onto the small ramp leading to the doorway.

It had chunks of oozing Sharkticon poking out of its mass but the somewhat bipedal blob was heaving itself up, ready to get its true prey.

Cyclonus swiftly abandoned the ship and bolted to the stairs.

Everyone was avoiding him, he must've looked awful but most must've seen the scuffle and wanted to keep away from the strange guy getting into fights.

He didn't care.

It left the stairs more open for him.

Several great long strides were all he needed to bolt down to the bottom.

He looked around, there must be somewhere to run, all the pathways were on an incline and many people were already thinning out and leaving, there was some commotion going on somewhere but Cyclonus couldn't focus.

With so few people about and only uphill to go, that blob would spot him easily.

It was a heavy splat that caused him to whirl around.

Abandoning the stairs the blob had just rolled off the side of the landing platform.

It was upright in a moment lumbering towards Cyclonus, intent to consume driving it unstoppably forwards.

Cyclonus took a turn and ran, towards the buzz of people, the inaudible buzz.

The blob had other ideas and stretched out a limb, wrapping around his ankle the blob tripped him over and began pulling his exhausted form towards itself.

This was when the barrels arrived.

From down one of the hills, two barrels arrived rolling and bouncing down, no doubt the cause of the small commotion from one pathway.

The first barrel hitting it in the chest, causing a shockwave through its boneless body and distracting it from its 'prey', collective sounds of surprise from bystanders that had previously been 'pretending' the blob didn't exist slowly became clearer.

The second wrenched the now unstable blob from its place, freeing Cyclonus as it threw the blob into the nearby wall.

The barrels broke from the impact and an almost clear fluid seeped out.

The blob rippled in what could possibly be pain as an awful pungent smell streaked from it.

Its form became less and less recognisable as the unknown fluid melted it away into a sickly ooze-based foam.

Slowly it ceased moving as it's foaming body disintegrated into bubbly mush.

Resisting the urge to vomit Cyclonus put a hand to his mouth and shuddered.

It was with an awful regret that he recognised the substance.

Korlonium acid.

Awful substance practically designed to eat away at a Seibertronian's body.

The stinging aroma of the disintegrated blob was causing tears to prick away at his burning eyes.

He looked around the crowd, now there was no 'danger' to themselves the surrounding people took interest in what was going on.

Peering at him and the diminishing remains.

At least one seemed to get the hint and pointed up one of the pathways, the steepest of the many available.

He had to find out where and who had these barrels.


	9. Chapter 9

"PRICK"

"ASSHOLE"

"SCUM"

It sounded like home.

No, it didn't….

Well, yes it did, but it wasn't from home.

Gavin felt a strange mixture of being numb all over yet feeling like he was twitching.

Memories of being in a back alley surrounded by not-friends.

Not-friends standing over him and a fuzzy taste in the mouth.

Something ice cold and wet touched his face and Gavin bolted upright.

The world was still spinning around him in a mess of colour and shapes.

"Uuuuuugh" He groaned, clasping his head, a weight on his back let him know the backpack was still there and he could feel his shoes.

It was a start at least.

Something clicked and something else uttered a few words.

Blinking the last few blurry shapes into order Gavin peered up.

Now, he wasn't scared of spiders but the thing in front of him was about the size of a cow.

His body was too tired and sore for much of a reaction but he still jerked at the sight of this thing.

If Gavin had much knowledge of animals or nature the thing in front of him looked almost exactly like a giant Sun Spider, right down to quite horrifying mouth parts and sticky pads at the end of a pair of 'legs' being held out, presumably the source of the cold feeling that briefly graced his face.

However, Gavin had no idea what a Sun Spider was and was more distracted - and disturbed - by the fact the thing had nipples.

Two rows of nipples on its underside.

Nipple… Spider…. A spider… with nipples….

After a few minutes of staring Gavin finally realised he was probably being horribly rude staring at the out-of-place nips.

The cow-spider thing clicked at him, presumably trying to say something and all Gavin could do was stare back.

Its limbs almost made a noise as it moved but it shuffled backwards a little as if giving him space to fully stand up.

With little in the way of viable communication and this alien possessing jaw-parts that could put, well, Jaws to shame Gavin was very wary as he took the hint to stand.

Rising in elevation did his mind no good as the world around him 'rebelled' and began spinning again.

He could hear the thing's multiple legs patter as it moved, reacting to Gavin being unable to prevent the whine of pain as the world circled him again. Grabbing at his own head wasn't helping but it stopped Gavin from feeling like he was wobbling on the spot anyway.

When things began to settle Gavin could see he was in a totally different part of the station.

Buildings weren't that far away but none of them faced this direction, very much a back alley.

The spider-alien was still watching him, it's expression unreadable.

Not that Gavin had the first clue on how to read it's expression, most of its face was mandible-claw-things.

How'd he get here?

Ah, that's right.

A black out.

Gavin rubbed himself down, things seemed in order and this time nothing was broken.

It was a surprisingly good start.

What had happened though?

He couldn't remember a thing, the last thing he knew of was getting a drink and it tasting just like that one time…

But that wouldn't be enough…

No, Gavin shook his head, the situation must have just collapsed down on him.

Space, new lands, no communication let alone actual money or employment prospects, surrounded by aliens… just everything, it must've just crashed down at the first opportunity.

He was feeling better now.

He hoped, why wouldn't he be?

He got it out of his system, blacked out and ran across a space station doing god-knows-what.

It was fine.

The spider had a small grey friend, it was stood on it's back.

It was like a tiny cat-rat-bat-gremlin with a cape made out of its ears fused into one large flap drooping over it's back.

That was the thing uttering a few word-like sounds.

It patted the spider and pointed at him

"Cahn blahn gan ren ren glen" it chirped.

"What!?" Gavin found himself blurting out

"Cah, rah glen" it tilted its head and the spider shuffled a few limbs.

That was it.

He hadn't got it out of his system.

No.

Not at all.

Not THAT anyway.

Without a word Gavin ran.

His chest was instantly consumed with some kind of fluffy ice as he ran, the floor and pathways changed in steepness and Gavin put no thought into his motion as he clambered up and through anything he could, using his hands to climb up ledges he probably could've walked up.

He didn't care.

As if to put a little cherry on top, he needed that reminder.

He would've been fine if he hadn't already 'wigged out'.

Now he was running through people, they were grumpy at him, human hands and shoulders pushing them out the way with no rhyme or reason.

He left a trail of irritation behind him.

He just didn't care.

He WAS stupid.

He WAS useless.

He HAD fucked up.

Paying little attention to his surroundings naturally bit him on the ass.

His foot collided with some kind of wheel, whatever the wheel was attached to rocked and lost balance, collapsing to its side, losing half of its contents, at least.

Gavin rolled over the top of this thing in his way and rammed into what felt like a snot-covered couch and collapsed to the floor.

With his mad dash finally halted Gavin wanted to remain lying face-down on the ground.

It would be his personal preference at this point.

Go away.

The Universe doesn't exist.

Bye.

Something that sounded like it was wet and heavy was sliding along the floor and Gavin regretted his choice to get up, but felt as though it might be wiser in this instance.

Looking up Gavin was face to face with something bizarre but also very easy for him to describe.

A big brown-ish slug, with four chameleon-like eyes in a row on its face, the tail-end of its body was bristling with similarly coloured spines.

Something akin to a mouth twisted in an unpleasant expression.

While initially on his knees Gavin slowly got himself on his feet and looked about.

A cart with a few barrels on was the victim of Gavin's crash, around him and the slug there were several aliens, all wearing a helmet with four patches of a glass-like material in them like a ridiculous uniform.

Whatever it was, they were all somewhat scared of the slug, taking a step back as it drew closer to Gavin, not taking a single eye off him.

"Gb bllrg blb grlaagbl" The thing that looked like a mouth under its eyes was a mouth as it gurgled to him angrily.

"Uhhh, safe?" Gavin blanked on what to say.

He wasn't expecting the slug to take some kind of offence to that as its body squirmed and shoved him back to the floor.

"What you doing?!" Gavin immediately hissed, anger seeping into his thought "Fucking slug" he spat without thinking.

The slug thankfully didn't seem to understand that or react, instead, it looked to one of its companions that advanced closer, squinting at him with a face like a frog on narcotics.

The slug blubbed out something else looking at the cart and it's missing contents, no doubt having fallen down the hill by now.

The barrels were pretty… inconspicuous to the say the least, almost to a shifty extent.

Yet the label on it looked familiar somehow, the symbols… were recognisable.

Gavin pointed at the label and immediately all eyes were on him.

"I recognise those symbols… no clue what they mean but I know 'em" He uttered hoping to find any sort of connection to defuse the situation.

Not that there was any obvious danger… yet.

The frog whispered to the slug, the slug murmured back.

"Seeeeeeeeeeeeeb-toooooooooneeee-an" The frog said in a droning voice.

Seeb… toonee… an?

Seebtonian?

Seibatro-Ah, the sounds connected the mess of dots in Gavin's mind, Cyclonus, the ship he was on, the symbols were from there, it was the same language, this Seibertronian language, that's where the barrels were from.

"O.. oh-oh, hey look I'm new here, Just trying to find some shit, uh, y'know? Right?... Oh just go away!" Gavin tried to do something, he didn't know anything still and was still hoping it'd all vanish.

"Sheeeeeeeeeeep" The frog hissed apparently having got more commands from the slug, it cocked it's head "You sheeeeeeep?"

The frog was getting ever closer to speaking English.

"I'm not a sheep, fuck you?" Gavin cocked his head but held his hands out, he may be outnumbered but that didn't mean he was going to suddenly start making smart choices.

"SHIP!" The frog barked "Our hole! Your ship!"

Gavin froze and reeled back, no doubt looking quite horrified at the frog's words. It was grasping the English tongue terribly quick.

"I… I don't own a ship? I was brought here on a ship though! Kinda purple… lavender-y? Oh! The Wing-bits were swooped forwards! Pretty sleek if you ask me! Though pretty much everything here is 'slick' and 'sleek' compared to the tech where I'm from…" Gavin founds his hands beyond his own control as they grasped and twiddled about the rim of his sleeves, before sailing up to his head, rubbing the back of it and getting tangled in the mess of hair.

At his words, the group seemed to get angrier and the slug was drawing itself up looking bigger and moodier.

"I hate you so, so much" Then there was a shriek like someone dragging nails down a sheet of metal rather than a chalkboard, but it was just as awful.

Barely registering the words that were spoken or the speaker Gavin folded in on himself, retreating from the shriek of a sound, the piercing noise driving his legs to a less solid state making him stumble to the side grasping his head.

Some alien with a helmet grabbed his shoulders, unwilling to let him get away so soon.

He dared not look around, there were sounds but they were loud.

Arguments.

Not just any arguments, the kind of heated, angry words that were joined to fists as they thumped into things.

Living things.

Human, animal… Child…

Gavin buzzed, being dropped here was like being dropped in a big vat of his own liquid failures and disgusting… self?

Fuck the breathing exercises, fuck whatever else he'd been told.

It was too much.

The limbs that grasped him began struggling as Gavin struggled, he wanted out, he didn't want anyone touching him.

NO TOUCHING.

LEAVE ME ALONE.

Thoughts continued to be disjointed but it didn't matter, he didn't want the hands holding him down, he didn't want anything.

As soon as an arm was free it was swung around.

It hit the chin of some alien holding onto a part of him.

The thing felt like styrofoam only not as fragile, but it still grunted and dropped him.

A leg felt… more… free.

Whatever.

He kicked.

He hit something 'cos it hurt and the arguing changed pitch and meaning.

The uniformed morons seemed to be rising to action, closing in and… No… No.

Gavin punched the next nearest guy again, before kicking the body-like shape now on the floor and running.

That did it.

A horde of angry noises erupted out and it was a chase.

Gavin was vaguely aware of something big and running in front of him, it was something, he followed, he ran, his brain screamed too much.

Something was coming up on his side and Gavin grabbed it.

A long piece of woody-stuff.

It sufficed and Gavin spun on the spot, swinging it around the weapon clashed with the slug.

The damn slug was leading the charge after him, it shouldn't be so damn fast!

Why was it so damn fast!?

It still reeled from the hit, some people slowing down to match him, other helmet-wearing weirdos continuing the chase.

He was wobbly, and now lagging behind, from hitting him but the adrenaline didn't care.

It was a buzzed out mess as Gavin ran after the speeding shape that was still in front of him, following it up some stairs and then into a cold darkness.

Yet the shape still moved as if out running the lights of this new little area Gavin had followed it into.

It got into another shape, and so did Gavin, it was a soft shape, something to rest on.

Without a word Gavin panted and gasped loudly, clinging onto his bat like his life depended on it.


	10. Chapter 10

Fury was evident, Korlonium was banned in many places and it's uses - outside killing Seibertronians - was limited, there was much cause to be angry and concerned at its presence.

Caution should probably be the more prominent feeling but after a day like today, Cyclonus didn't care.

If the barrels hadn't already caused a clear path to the origin point of the problems, angry, sharp warrior alien did.

The voices from a gathering of people became clearer and the group was stood beside a toppled cart with certain barrels on.

But as the voices became clearer Cyclonus heard what they were talking about.

"SHIP!" A voice barked "Our hole! Your ship!"

"I… I don't own a ship? I was brought here on a ship though! Kinda purple… lavender-y? Oh! The Wing-bits were swooped forwards!-" followed afterwards, a rushed sentence but enough to get more anger to flourish within his spark.

This fucker AGAIN?!

The group also seemed to bristle with some anger even before Cyclonus pushed himself into the scene

"I hate you so, so much" He made sure to add quickly in an Earthen tongue.

"What are you doing!?" Cyclonus shrieked in his own language, grabbing the attention of everyone important in the group, causing all attention to be on him.

"You!" The slug gurgled, it's language recognisable enough for Cyclonus to understand "How dare you use our bridge!" It was not as tall as him but the slug still tried to square up to Cyclonus.

"YOUR bridge!?" The anger in his voice didn't ebb away "YOU have no bridge! Space Bridges are OUR thing by law!"

"You will not live to tell our little secret! Not that it matters anyway!" The slug was doing it's best to be intimidating.

"And THIS! Why do you have THIS Acid!?" Cyclonus barked back, finding most of his energy was diverted to the thought of 'don't move, don't start a fight now'.

"Exactly, we have your precious technology and your sort won't bother us again!" The slugs gloating rant was disrupted by an angry hiss from the side.

That fucking idiot was attacking them, not that Cyclonus cared anymore, he wanted to rip this fucker's head off his body, but one of his spindly followers jumped forwards, it's limbs balancing on top of two barrels containing Korlonium.

Well, that small reminder put a different light on this situation.

Cyclonus turned and ran, at this point, with everything going on, it was better to just cut his losses and run.

Screw it.

It was no surprise this caused an explosion of action behind them as the group surged forwards

It was definitely time to leave this place.

"Coward! Tell your ugly big-horned boss we're after him!" The Slug roared "Lerge will defeat him!"

Cyclonus didn't have the time or patience to register those words, who would really take the time to listen to their pursuer in a chase.

He did hear a vague set of grunts and a thump behind him.

Even without turning around it felt like there were fewer people like it slowed down, but it too was unimportant.

Why stop for anything during a chase?.

Certainly, bystanders and other shop-goers were already clearing the street in anticipation.

Stairs? Stairs were easy, big leaping strides, go over more than one step every time.

The top was reached in no time.

Something was still behind him, roughly, but he couldn't see it.

The only thing he wanted to see was his ships doors as they welcomed him in.

The lights of the craft hummed and popped to life but they were too slow for his running, only lighting up once he had passed.

The ship was home, it was calming and the furore of the chase became less of a weight on his mind.

Cyclonus could feel himself breathe again, the space around him became a bit more focused as he relaxed into his pilot's chair.

He got here, they did not catch him and they… Did not know who he was?

Big-horned boss?

Cyclonus slammed his hands onto the controls before him.

Sloppy and messy but the half-assed commands still got enough of the job done.

The ship closed its doors and the engines spluttered loudly, the atmosphere was filled with a loud whirring noise as the ship powered up and began to rise.

Clasping the controls Cyclonus shoved them forwards and the ship darted forwards.

Barely missing the tops of all the other parked ships the purple jet-like craft cut through the space around it leaving the space station behind escaping through the maw it entered in.

Cyclonus didn't stop.

He was away, yes, no one following him.

But…

He just wanted to be far away from that head right now.

The nearest Space Bridge was easy to reach, barely a few nano-kliks away, certainly not at the exorbitant speeds he was going anyway.

The Space Bridge responded to his ship, as it did with all ships, and Cyclonus was coughed out the other end to a new series of stars.

Several millions of miles away from Unicron's Head.

It'd certainly be a while before he went back there again.

It was good.

Nicer.

Calmer.

Not… Quieter…

While the day had been escaped, all the mess and confusion and utter… bizzarity of the past had been mentally closed away upon leaving the space station, other things had not.

The entire room was filled with deep gasping.

Cyclonus spun around, in the chair next to him that damn human was still there.

Curled up tightly on the chair it was holding a wooden bat, detailed with a tiny bit of slime, no doubt from Lerge.

It's breathing was visible for all to see, it's chest rising and expanding with each breath and deflating quickly with each exhale. A lot of the noise coming from how the human was managing to take in half of its breaths through its nasal extremity and half in noisy oral gasps.

The backpack was pressed up against the chair as it had paid no mind to it when trying to squeeze itself as far back into the chair as possible. Riding up it's back the backpack was practically resting upon its head, pushing its mop of fur over its face, barely covering wide glistening eyes that were glazed over, barely taking in the surroundings.

It looked like hell.

It was hell, the blasted bad luck charm.

"Ah, for fuck's sake" Cyclonus hissed.

He was stuck with this thing AGAIN.

It barely moved to his words or presence but Cyclonus did.

Not bothering with the human or anything else Cyclonus stormed out the room.

He was going to bed.

Fuck it.

Just fuck this day.

* * *

"Should we follow it?"

"No, let's just keep a note of its Spark signature just in case it shows up again"

The Sharkticon didn't fully process the words it could hear through its bond to its masters.

It had just watched the other Sharkticon sent to observe die and then the cell following its target get obliterated.

"Should we worry about that acid?"

"No, this place is still weak and it was just a unshielded cell…"

"Why worry? Many of them come here, still do, nothing has happened"

"The longer this goes on the more likely something WILL happen, besides they've never come in this far inside before"

"Acknowledged, what of the alien with it?"

"Seems more of a tagalong, clueless and useless, A little curious, however, I do not think it's kind is space-worthy yet…"

"We will take a look at its planet, just to confirm"

"Excellent, seal up as many entrances as possible, we don't want any more interlopers"

"Acknowledged"


End file.
